Pretty Perfect Toy -- A Temptation Court Novel (Temptation Court, Book 2) (7 page)

“This isn’t something I want to talk about anymore, Mishella.”

“Is that why the only sound louder than your fist against that desk is the grind of your teeth? Why you look as if you yearn to collapse where you stand, but run as fast as you can at the same time?”

“This conversation isn’t going to happen. Period.”

“I think this conversation is long overdue.”

“Then you think really wrong.”

The confrontation did not end any better—but like the stars that rebelled from the cosmos to first bring us together, we pushed back the mess and found each other once more.
Reconnected
.

Dear Creator, if I only know we always will…

And then the comprehension strikes.

Is
this
the meaning of having faith?

No wonder all those saints at the Cloisters looked so terrified.

No wonder I commiserate so thoroughly with them now.

But if the fear were gripping me tenfold, I would still endure every moment. For Cassian. To know everything about him—no matter how ugly or hard or terrible it is—I will walk through Hades itself.

So maybe this
is
faith.

And maybe that is simply a huge part of falling in love.

“
Mishella
.” He reaches over, grabbing my other hand. Brings my knuckles up to his lips. “I love you. And I don’t want to silo the explosives anymore. Not with you.” Before my perplexed frown has a chance to fully form, he rushes on, “If this blows up on me, then I want
your
finger on the launch button.”

Oh, Creator.

Oh…this man.

I lift our joined hands. Extend just my fingertips from their clasp, spreading them over both sides of his jaw. The warmth of his skin mixed with the stab of his stubble inspires a similar contrast of sensations. Excitement, energy, awakening, even arousal…but also deeper versions of nervousness…fear.

This is faith.

And I
do
believe it.

Believe in him.

In us.

The surety reaches like roots of a tree, twining through the ground of our connection, reaching for him. I feel his stretching for me too…coiling deeper into me. We are strong, ready for the storm of whatever may come.

“I only want to love you too, Cassian. As best I can, in whatever way you need. That is all.”

For a long while, his stillness is my only reply. Nothing moves through him, not even a breath. I shiver harder. Terrified but turned-on. Unsure but utterly heated.

He steps back. Exhales roughly. “Christ,
armeau.
That’s all I still pray for…after this.”

*

Cassian

As we climb
the spiral of stairs, I start to tremble.

Me.

Fuck.

This isn’t the surface shit, like jitters funneled into productivity. This is the shakes from the inside out. The vibrations claiming the ends of my nerves, the pith of my bones, even the molecules of my breaths. The last time I felt something close to this, I held a shovel in my hands, breaking ground on Court Towers.

This is even more unfamiliar ground. And the route is riddled with quicksand.

But I’m determined. Right now, just this once, it’s time for the silos to go. For the first time, one person alone will have access to every single bomb that can destroy me.

One person…who, as it stands right now, will not even be here in four months.

Is that why I’ve even thought about doing this?

No
. Plenty of women—people I’ve even dared to called “relationships” before—have come along before this.

This is different.

She
is different.

Reassuring…right? Somebody needs to relay that to my bile-filled gut.

One mire at a time, man. One foot in front of the other. And watch the fucking quicksand.

I sure heed
that
little tidbit—by hitting the top of the stairs with a step made of lead. One more.
Great. You’re doing soooo great.

New acid boils up, scorching my throat as I lift my head, already knowing the dark vista that awaits my gaze.

The room is sealed in perpetual gloom but kept meticulously clean, thanks to Prim. It’s still centered by the ornate day bed, covered in that pristine gold brocade, a dozen pillows, and the stuffed animals in shades of cream and white. Nearby, the little chaise with the throw blanket is still positioned next to the reading table with its small stack of books, purchased by me but never read by their recipient. Long ago, during those numb days when I couldn’t move from the floor next to the couch, I committed every one of those spines into bitter memory.

Stop The Insanity: Pills No More

Beating Back the Beast

Serenity in Stillness: An Addict’s Prayers

Quitting and Sticking

Why Can’t I Say No?

Addiction Understood

But nothing in the room diverts from its main attraction.

The wide curve of the turret almost appears to fall away from the building, due to the ripped wallpaper at its edges. The walls were kept like this on my dictate, along with the dried blood smears on the exposed surface beneath.

Lily, stop it.
Stop it
. You’re bleeding, dammit!

But she didn’t stop.

The center window of the turret, its original pane still broken out except for a few chunks of glass, bears the harrowing proof of that. Forming a seal over the outside of the panel is the Plexiglass cover Hodge mounted from the outside, since I ordered that the original window also remain as-is. The cover is now clouded by dust and spotted with rain. I wish to hell my memories would grow as dull…have surrendered hope they ever will.

Ella sees that too. More vitally, she understands. I see it in every inch of her bearing as she turns from the window back to me. While new questions flow from her eyes, her lips are firm and her bearing straight. Simply from our shared stares, she knows answers are finally going to come.

I just beg God to get me to the end.

“Cassian.”

Her voice breaks on it. My whole jaw clenches, crushing down on my hatred of the sound.
I am the subject of nobody’s pity.
But as she uses our joined hands to pull me across the room, I let her. When she stops before the chaise then hesitates to sit, I make the decision for us both—by falling to my knees next to it.

“
Cassian
.”

She utters nothing but a rasp now. I hate
and
cherish the sound, drawn to it like an orphan to shelter. As soon as she plummets to the chaise, her hands are in my hair and my head is in her lap. I reach up, compelled by forces I cannot control. Grip her by the ribcage, confirming she is real and warm and
here
. Dark sarcasm sneaks in.
Fuck
…I’m going to have to tell Kathryn she’s been right all these years. I’ve been living with ghosts too damn long.

But what the fuck to do with them now
? I grapple for the answer past the swamp in my head and the boulders in my throat. The only path to clarity seems to lie in holding this woman harder…in breathing in her strength and warmth, wrapped tighter around me in return. The new pressure brings a strange sensation. Amazement. That she can sit here, overflowing with humanity and tenderness even after two insane months in a city that should be
named
Insanity, shatters my mind. That she can surround me with devotion, even sitting in a room where Lily whispers from every shadow, smashes apart my soul.

Or maybe she’s just become as insane as the city already…

As if that matters now.

I burrow deeper against her. Battle for more eloquence than what
does
come out. “I don’t know…what to do with them now.”

Them
.

How an attempt at confessing about Lily turned into a catch-all for Damon too is too tangled a mystery right now.
Eye on the goal. You’re best at that above all, remember
? In this moment, I just need to get this shit spilled—before survival instinct blasts in and shuts me down.

Because this feels a little like dying.

Maybe a lot like it.

“Cassian.”

“
What
?”

Yeah…my voice is now the husk, and hers the command. I ignore the recognition. And the new hammer in my blood. And the dread coiling into my grip, seeking more of her warmth.

“Just start at the beginning.”

A scrape of a laugh. “Sure,
favori.
I’ll get right on that.” This shit has been a part of me for so long, I have no damn idea where “the start” is.

She folds herself tighter around me. Yeah, she knows that too.

“Tell me how you and Lily met.”

Remarkably, I exhale. Unbelievably, layers of tension leave my body, too.
Unreal
. Is this woman actually turning my giant slab of difficult into a friendly conversation? As I breathe back in, I am suffused with her jasmine and vanilla scent. The memories start to come easier.

“I was…young.
Really
young.” The qualifier feels necessary. “Nash Quinn recruited me for Quantumm Corp before I finished my junior year at Fordham. He had a huge project starting with Eurail, and wanted me to be a co-project director on it.”

“Project director?” Her stare bulges. “For all of Europe?”

I shrug. Her reply lands me in more familiar territory. While it’s not new to compare an ambitious college student with a decent brain to a genius superhero, I’ve still heard every dazed gush composed on the subject. “I was very close to dropping out and accepting.”

She gives my hair a reproving tug. “Always in such a hurry.”

“Hurrying had nothing to do with it.”

“No?”

“No. The zeroes he kept adding to the offer, on the other hand…”

“Zeroes don’t help everything, Cassian.”

“No. But they get attention—and
that
helps everything.”

Her face tightens. I want to feel shitty for dumping the brutality of it like that, but I don’t. Isn’t the truth what we’re in this room for? Wasn’t it what defined us from the start—when the zeroes I threw at her father earned me the attention needed to get her here? Zeroes I would’ve increased in a second, if that was what it took.

Voicing it crosses my mind, until I see the recognition take quiet—and troubling—hold in her eyes. In her world, wealth has done nothing but corrupt people. In mine, it has been the door to supporting them. Her way isn’t totally right, but neither is mine. Maybe it’s another reason fate has pulled a few favors with the universe to rope us together—and why I hope, beyond logic or sanity, that the knots just keep adding up.

“So.” She neutralizes her expression once more. “You were young…”

“And right out of college.
Yes,
” I assure, answering the approval in her gaze, “that
did
happen, in every sense of the word. Wore the cap and gown, shook all the necessary hands…”

Her head tilts. “Your
maimanne
stepped in with some ‘tactful’ prodding?”

I snort. “Prodding’s one way of saying it.”

“She went for the castration angle?”

“Worse.”

“
Worse
?”

“Threatened never to make my favorite lemon bars again.” Though I almost break a grin with the knowledge that my castration would be that troubling to her.

“That must have all been before Prim.”

Sarcasm etches her words—on the surface. Nothing about them is tossed casually. I wonder how long she’s waited to utter them—and guess it was nearly from the moment she and Prim met. That was nearly two months ago but I remember that walking-on-cacti moment as if it were yesterday. Prim, so suspicious she looked jealous. Ella, so uncomfortable she looked guilty. They’ve tiptoed into friendlier airspace since, but I could be doing more to de-ice the waters.

“For the record, Prim’s lemon bars don’t approach Mom’s.” Now I do insert a chuckle. “And Prim will be the first to admit that to you.” Wrap my hands around hers, lowering them between my chest and her knees. “What Prim
hasn’t
been so forthcoming about is that she and I have never been with each other—nor will we ever be.”

She huffs out a skeptical laugh. “
Désonnum
, Cassian…but many believe unicorns exist too, and—”

“She was Lily’s best friend.”

As I hope, that stills her. As I dread, that means revisiting more of the past—a reckoning I’ve ignored for too long. Every pound of my heart reconfirms that much. “I met her as I was getting to know Lily.” Though imagine that, the beginning
does
feel like the best place to start. “Nash wanted me on the Eurail project the second I graduated. Flew me to Utrecht, in the Netherlands, the day after I walked for my diploma. For the next month, we were at Eurail HQ during the days and buried in meeting debriefs every night, so Nash insisted I stay at the castle he was leasing instead of a hotel.”

She lifts a knowing smile. “Hmm. Not a tough assignment.”

“Unless you like toilets that actually work.”

Her giggle is as genuine as my smirk. “You billionaires are so picky.”

“Didn’t have two euros to rub together back then.” I illustrate the point by spreading my hands. “I was just a kid at my version of the Magic Kingdom. Modernizing communications and operations for one of the world’s largest transportation entities…working with high-level engineering executives in every country in Europe…” I shake my head, kicking up a one-sided smile. “For the first time in my life, my wings didn’t feel clipped.”